Van Zyl goes on the offensive, De Maar takes the win at Tour of Norway stage 2

Marc De Maar (United Healthcare) won the 2nd stage of the Tour of Norway after he and Matejc Paterski (CCC Polsat) attacked the peloton with 29km left to race. The duo were able to hold off the peloton to contest the stage victory. Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) lead the peloton home in 3rd place, some 12 seconds down on De Maar.

Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung had Gerald Ciolek finish in 17th place as the teams highest placed finisher on the stage but it was the young South African, Johann van Zyl who grabbed the attention today. After less than 10km of racing a 6 rider break went clear of the peloton, including Van Zyl. The 6 escapees managed to build up a lead just under 4 minutes before Team Katusha started the chase.

With 50km to go the wind started to pick up and so Tinkoff-Saxo and Belkin tried to split the peloton up by riding in the gutter. This increase in pace saw the lead of the break tumble and they were eventually reeled in with still 40km to go. The splits never happened though as there just wasn’t enough wind to make a difference. With the race all together a number of opportunists then tried their luck with Paterski and De Maar finally getting the deciding gap.

Directeur Sportif – Manel Lacambra

We put Johann in the break of the day and he did good staying away almost the whole stage. Then when his break was caught on the cross wind section a new break formed. The situation was still not bad for us because all the top riders were in the bunch. With 12km to go Gerald crashed and he needed a bike change. At this point the group was in full speed chasing the break and Gerald did a big effort to come back to the group after his bike change. In the final he finished top 20 with the same time that the top riders.

Stage Results